She also embodies the upwardly mobile, privileged sections of the diaspora. Suchitra Vijayan is a barrister-at-law, writer and researcher. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. In Nellie (Assam) too, where over 3,000 Muslims were killed in 1983, people stared at Vijayan in confusion, no one comes here anymore, she was told. Vijayans lens not only captures the people but also the past through objects, such as the picture of Kotwali Gate, the remains of a medieval fort that serves as a border checkpoint rife with weeds and trees growing on it, symbolic of a state bent on rewriting history rather than preserving it. Who gets to travel, tell stories, and, more importantly, publish them are all deeply connected to questions of access, resources, and privilege. Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. Many of the stories didnt make it to the book because it became dangerous to identify people. In the first season, when he and his team are tasked to thwart the terrorist attack Operation Zulfiqar, the plot moves from Mumbai to Kashmir. Stallings, Rumpus Original Fiction: The Litany of Invisible Things. IWE is a body of work where the voices of Indias marginalized are still kept on the fringes; Midnights Borders is anarrative nonfiction book depicting a world that novels from mainland India have failed to depict. The credit goes to my agent Lucy Cleland who suggested this title. We need more writers from Indias Northeast, Kashmir, Indigenous, Dalit, and Muslim communities to tell stories that help complete the canvas of narratives about India. Rohini Menon for Feminism in India, FII Interviews: Suchitra Vijayan Talks About Marginalisation, Institutional Violence & Political Imagination, Ananya is a chaotic humanities student with a deep interest in the relationship between art and society, a writing obsession, and way too many bizarre ideas involving their camera. Siaan On Being Queer And Being Online, FII Interviews: Journalist Meena Kotwal On Minority Politics, Journalism Today And The Caste Divide. This is not the violent right wing and their siege; its centrist and liberal media that is also relitigating history, deconstructing the core values of the constitution. And join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member. But Pakistan responded by rejecting these claims and told the Associated Press that the area was mostly deserted wooded area and that there were no casualties or damage on the ground. Unreliable Witnesses - Boston Review You need a community of people to support you. Because you are constantly thinking about the ethical universe you are bringing this child into What values do you teach this child? It is here that even the most civilised amongst us begin to make excuses for repression, brutality, and violence. The book is a prelude to what was coming, and is also a impassioned plea to my readers to ask some fundamental questions of what it means to live in a country like Indiawhat is the function of a state when its primary preoccupation is no longer the citizen but a performance of an ideology? How do you think this shapes climate justice? They are also essentially bureaucratic, judicial, and procedural acts of terror. Fear seems to be a constant motif in the book we see versions and types of it. Her writing has appeared in The Citron Review, Dukool Magazine, Cerebration, Feminism in India, Times of India (Spellbound edition), and others. Suchitra Vijayan (Author of Midnight's Borders) - Goodreads Suchitra Vijayan I particularly loved the fact that all our couple shots were very natural and came out truly . Indian Foreign Secretary V.K. A: I dont agree with this kind of framing, because its not that underrepresented people dont have voices. In Assam, Vijayan met people devastated by the National Register of Citizens process, with names of long-time residents missing from the final list, and in Kashmir she spent time with a family mourning the loss of their son in an encounter. Suchitra - Wikipedia SUCHITRA VIJAYAN PHOTOGRAPHY - 42 Photos - Manhatan, NY - Yelp Our borders had become a spectacle, and we the cheering mob, she says, as she calls for purging hatred for the sake of posterity. Even those who now write about Modis India, will never write about Brahmanism or be critical of how caste works in the diaspora. None of this helps in telling richer, more textured stories. She lucidly explains the complicated history of the McMahon Line, how the India-China border is the result of a fabrication perpetuated by the British colonial administration. Legislations such as National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act threaten to render millions of people, especially Muslims, stateless. She was part of a music band at PSG. Qin took charge as Chinese foreign minister in December, succeeding Wang Yi. No one is a stakeholder herethese are people, humans, citizens, who have been deprived of what the Ambedkarite constitution promised them. I think the way that news and mostly disinformation makes its way to us, we think of violence in very particular waysas disjointed. To them he is a man who has settled into a job that has no future. 'Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India' review: A This language drums the idea of the fundamental importance of justice, and such language is inalienable: it can easily be defined and empathetically understood. What moral and political stands we should take in the face of ongoing oppression. The Indian State and the people of this Republic. All too often, the Indian media portrays Kashmiris as terrorists or human shields, not as a community seeking self-determination. Chopra cleverly uses womens empowerment, diversity, and the immigrant story as a facade to parrot and promote deeply problematic ideologies, takes, and stances. They create cleavages of fear, xenophobia, and insecurity. Vijayan: The photographs were the heart of this project. Suchitra Vijayan. Also read: Whose Stories Are Told In Indian History? Why dont people see the ground shifting beneath their feet? Her career as a playback singer now spans Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films and she has several hits in all these languages to her credit. Suchitra Vijayan | The Nation She studied Law, Political Science and International Relations, and was trained as a Barrister-at-Law and called to Bar at the Honourable Society of Inner Temple. Suchitra Vijayan, Newspapers in a Kashmiri home In August 2014 I travelled to the border town of Uri while researching my upcoming book, Borderlands. The stories were a way to understand how people struggled and survived. As a Bookshop affiliate, The Rumpus earns a percentage from qualifying purchases. Rumpus: The book utilizes more than one medium: photography, narrative nonfiction, journalism. First, the escalation in the counterinsurgency war within the Kashmir Valley under which hundreds of activists were arrested and several Kashmiri civilians killed in gun battles was grievously underreported. FII Interviews: Suchitra Vijayan Talks About Marginalisation Respond to our political present. Vijayan: There is an elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed that cant be bridged. Already a subscriber? Rumpus: Were you trying to write a hybrid-genre book? Hope Is the Last Bastion: Talking with Suchitra Vijayan Gokhale claimed that it struck the biggest camp and that a large number of terrorists were killed. With the phone armed with a camera, everyone is a photographer; we are all witnesses. Its easy for Indian Americans and diaspora Desis to become tokens who speak of diversity but not equity or representation, talk of caste as culture and whitewash Hindutva. This article was published more than4 years ago. Vasundhara Sirnate Drennan is director of research at the Polis Project. You will see very little critical commentary or public positions on Hindutva, its corrosive role in India, or how RSS works here in the USfunding and now interfering in US elections. The border runs through him, his friend Jamshed had told Vijayan, He is almost gone, but I dont want his story to be gone too.. What is the emotional and artistic cost that one pays as a writer while crafting these narratives? A Seven Year, 9,000-Mile Journey Along India's Contested Land Borders These instances are also about border practices because modern states, especially liberal democracies, expend immense energy in creating and maintaining identity categories: who belongs, and where. Bigotry is also big business. How do you think your book contributes to the larger conversation about India? Thanks to The New India Foundation for sending across a beautiful copy of the Midnights Borders. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. This is a profoundly alienating place for anyone without the networks of privilege and resources. My friend Ritesh Uttamchandani said this once, the lens that elusive distance between the photographer and the photographed is often impossible to bridge. This book ate into so much of my life. Indias intellectual, journalistic, and literary landscape is profoundly problematic and alienating. What it means to photograph, write, report and document is an ongoing process. Its not comparable and should not be compared. The photographs add another dimension to the book, and could have been used more. The argument put forward was simple: India, like most countries, had its human rights violations, but these were characterized as the growing pains and maturation of the worlds largest democracy. Second, border policies are about "performance and articulations of citizenship". The government, of course, denies this. Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me, Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, FUNNY WOMEN: Excerpts from George Eliots, Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by John A. Nieves, RUMPUS POETRY BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: WHY I WRITE LOVE POETRY IN A BURNING WORLD by Katie Farris, The Freedom of Form & Re-Entering Myths: An interview with A.E. Suchitra Vijayan on Twitter: ""Fighting for justice and human rights in We are all complicit in upholding and maintaining this fear. I havent spoken or celebrated with my friends in Kashmir or Assam. Second, Indias transformation into a nuclear state and the Kargil War is another critical moment of change. So the first reflection is this idea of where we are right now: as people, as a society, as a community. Feminism In India is an award-winning digital intersectional feminist media organisation to learn, educate and develop a feminist sensibility among the youth. March 20, 2021 09:50:40 IST. So lets be very clear that Indias intellectual literary landscape is deeply problematic, feudal, and alienating," says Suchitra Vijayan to FII, Featured Image Source: In her book, she makes her intention clear at the very beginning, claiming that this endeavor is not to give voice to the voiceless but to critique the nation-state, its violence, and the arbitrariness of territorial sovereignty. She acknowledges that a book in its limited scope cannot really encapsulate the entirety of this journey, and it will remain more of a scrapbook, a collection of images, texts, poetry, and maps. Vijayan: Chopra and others like her are a reflection of how popular culture and virality inform discourse and shape it. The travel, the people they encounter, and the political events they record quickly become cameos. It is meant to manufacture an underclass of rightless subjects. Second, there is a clear distinction between speaking against the powerful and claiming to speak on behalf of the "voiceless". Its a practice. Yes, Chopra does take a huge share of attention, but the real danger is how people like her whitewash Hindutva, and now increasingly co-opt the language of Hinduphobia to counter any critique of Hindutva. 'Music I Like', an album of Suchitra's renditions of Mahakavi Bharatiyaar's poetry, set to contemporary tunes and music, released by Universal Music, was a turning point in her career. I think freedom and dignity enables us to really go beyond in our political imaginationbeyond just electoral politics. Travel to States like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland in the Northeast which share borders with China and Myanmar required Inner Line Permits, BSF soldiers followed her everywhere on the West Bengal/ Bangladesh border, and in Kashmir she was summoned to meet the local inspector at Uri. There is a lot to learn and unlearn, and a writer and a photographer should respond to a political moment, and the work should be a reflection of those practices. Even as 70% of the border with Bangladesh has been fenced, smugglers, drug couriers, human traffickers and cattle rustlers continue to cross to ply their trades. All along the border, the common refrain is, It feels like Partition is still alive., A story from near Jalpaiguri in north Bengal, that of a man named Ali, is heartbreaking. It is always Bollywood, the ascent of Priyanka Chopra, or the diasporic loneliness. Looking Beyond the Lines: Suchitra Vijayan's "Midnight's Borders" He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Georgia and is the author of The House With a Thousand Stories, His Fathers Disease, and There Is No Good Time for Bad News. ""The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the state." Antonio Gramsci" In the popular depictions of India circulating in the US, we rarely see the stories that the nations jingoistic governments have shoved under the carpet. Good, honest and non-polemical writing has always forced us to confront the lies we tell ourselves. Especially when you can be charged with sedition for a tweet or arrested for the crime of committing comedy while being Muslim. So the question is not: will the future be borderless? What matters is that the book exists. This also decides who gets access, awards and accolades. Nonfiction, Travel, Fiction Member Since February 2021 edit data Suchitra Vijayan was born and raised in Madras, India. I wanted to make sure that I was writing in a way that was honest and true to my initial reactions, and capture that without centering myself. I left a few names out in the acknowledgment, worrying if it might direct more trouble towards them. And what does this mean for on-ground communities, governments, armed forces, and other institutional stakeholders? I test my practice of writing or being a photographer against this rule. I'mdyslexic, but have visual and episodic memory, which means I dream and relive moments. And that violence is often abetted by the state and goes unpunished. The pandemic showed us that crises and recurrent disasters that annihilate our lives are here to stay. How did you achieve empathy in your writing, without the privileged lens that is common in journalistic canon? Its a vicious cycle. A British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe set foot in India for the first time in July, 1947 to draw the borders and completed the task within seven weeks, engendering communal riots, a heavily militarized border, four wars and seven decades of violence and hatred between the two countries. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, recently published by Context, Westland. A: This geopolitical violence is not new, theres a long bloody, brutal history to thisa cyclical, ongoing and never-ending history. She is currently working on her first novel. What I was most concerned about and still am are the people in the book and their safety. We need to think about border practices, policing, and national security policies within the larger historical and political contexts. What connects these messages is deep empathy and a willingness to engage with the books stories, ideas, and arguments. But who gets to speak for so many of us? This means that the capacity to see does not automatically become the capacity for action. Perhaps thats their victory. The book was called ``a genre- bending book of nonfictionmade of stories, encounters, vignettes, and photographsabout home, belonging, and displacement.`` Her essays, photographs, and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Nation, The Boston Review, Foreign Policy, Lit Hub, Rumpus, Electric literature, NPR, NBC, and BBC. What do these events have in common? If you want to support the work that goes behind publishing high-quality feminist media content, please consider becoming a FII member. Aruni Kashyap writes in English, and his native language Assamese. In her15,000-kilometre journey, spread over seven years, Vijayan mulls over the meaning of freedom, belongingness in a land of imagined communities, created by territorial demarcations. I dont want to make this about me. Over the past 15 years, small democratisation through social media has enabled challenging these practices. Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) / Twitter Follow Suchitra Vijayan @suchitrav Author: Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India. The acts of writing, documenting, photographing, and archiving carry privileges of caste and class. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?".
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